The year’s wrapping up, and in the world of professional wrestling, journalists, fans, bloggers, etc., will be declaring their wrestlers and matches of the year. However, here at Cheap Pop Culture, I’d rather give you a breakdown of all the times pro wrestling reared its red-headed step child head in the world of pop culture. So enjoy the second annualof The Year of Wrestling in Pop Culture.

Before Cracked became a listicle site and a podcast, and you were more likely to try a MAD Magazine fold-in than you were to look through its Twitter feed, these humor magazines served a purpose to many a youth when it came to satirical skewering of the pop culture we were surrounded with at the time. As wrestling caught on with the masses so did its coverage on many national magazines, giving us some pretty awesome Cracked and MAD magazine cover illustrations.

2015 wasn’t the greatest year for wrestling legends in terms of breaking news stories. Two of the greatest entertainers, Dusty Rhodes and Roddy Piper, passed away. Jimmy Snuka was arrested and charged with third-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter of his then-girlfriend, Nancy Argentino, 32 years after the fact. And, even though former Hulkmaniacs thought it impossible, Hulk Hogan was able to further desecrate his legacy and contribution to professional wrestling by adding to his already long list of personal failures and embarrassments his dropping of the n-word. Multiple times. Seriously, you would’ve thought it was one of the Hulkamania commandments after “take your vitamins.”

Thankfully, this site focuses on wrestling in pop culture. So even when it’s bad, it’s not going to leave you depressed and questioning everything you kayfabe believed in. And luckily, 2015 was a good year for pro wrestling within the canon of pop culture.

Having never had much of an interest in actual sports, most of my exposure to “real” sports usually came from being forced to watch with a group of friends, or by way of pro wrestling. Yes, as much as Vince McMahon hates the NFL for continually losing to them in a certain Monday Night War that occurs every football season, the WWE and other promotions have never shied away from the publicity that comes with piggybacking on the NFL’s popularity. So, I figured I’d share just how much the NFL has influenced professional wrestling over the years. Which would’ve made more sense if I had posted this the day of Super Bowl XLIX, but oh well.

If you’re a regular live-tweeter during Raw or WWE “special events”, or if you’re someone who just happens to peruse the twitter timeline of WWE-themed hashtags, chances are you might’ve stumbled across tweets from Melissa Joan Hart, A.K.A. Clarissa from Clarissa Explains It All A.K.A. Sabrina from Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, in which she tweets about said WWE-themed hashtags.

And if you’re anything like me, you instantly started following her on Twitter because her love of wrestling instantly made you forget about her Who’s the Boss? reimagining Melissa & Joey. Turns out Melissa’s love of wrestling might date back to the Attitude Era when she wrestled Billy Gunn on an episode of Sabrina.